Notes and Essays -- John Brown

Aspects such as drone technology and diplomacy show how the wars intersect on the battlefield and in global alignments, providing a model for future conflicts. Assessing the damaged buildings following Russian strikes in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, on Sunday. Credit... Roman Pilipey/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images By Lara Jakes The New York Times ,  March 26 Updated 10:31 a.m. ET [original article contains many links;] Jakes image in the cited NYT article smaller than the above.] Lara Jakes covers conflict and diplomacy, with a focus on weapons and the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. The trench warfare and heavy artillery on Ukraine’s battlefields in 2022 don’t look much like the war by air and sea that began when the United States and Israel attacked Iran. But similarities between the two conflicts soon became evident and remain so almost three months later. In both, the country with the more powerful military has been unable to vanquish its adversary. President Vladimir V....

From Quora May 26 Elena Gold  ·  Follow  Wrote a book about Russia-Ukraine war U kraine can now strike targets 1,700 km deep inside Russia (Perm, Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk); Ukrainian drones and cruise missiles can penetrate layered Moscow air defenses as well . Military production and oil refining and storage facilities are the primary targets of the Ukrainian strikes in Russia. Russia uses proceeds from oil exports to fund the war. Attacks on oil refineries and storage depots are aimed to stifle Russia’s ability to profit from high oil prices. Currently, estimated 10–25% of Russia’s refining capacity is offline. The bottlenecks in refining capacity even caused the closure of 400 oil wells in just one oil mining company. Map of main Russian refineries: Ukraine can strike Yekaterinburg, but hasn’t reached as far as Tyumen and Surgut (as yet). Hitting Surgut facilities could halt a large share of oil deliveries to the rest of Russia . Ukraine is systematically destroying ...

World of Gold  ·  Follow Posted by  Elena Gold  in Quora 2h ‼️Terrified Putin threatens to strike central Kyiv, demands foreign diplomats to evacuate Russian foreign ministry began a campaign of threats, demanding that foreign embassies evacuate personnel from Kyiv, threatening “devastating strikes” against the city centre . “Let’s hit the centres where decisions are made” was the mantra of Russian TV war-mongers for years, saying that Russia was “too kind” and needed to use “its full force.” Experts say there is a major change of tides in the war, with Ukraine capturing the initiative at the front and slowly suffocating Russia’s ability to wage the war with strikes against Russian refineries, ports, and military-industrial plants. The Russian logistics at the front is under immense stress and the Russian troops are approaching the breaking point because of losses and cutoff from the supply routes. At the same time, Russian elites are no longer content with the ...

 https://kyivindependent.com/russias-latest-assault-on-kyiv-underscores-the-peril-facing-ukraines-cultural-heritage/ Reporter Kate Tsurkan Monday May 25 5 minutes read Russia's latest assault on Kyiv turns Ukraine's cultural heritage into another front line In one of the most devastating attacks on Kyiv since the start of the full-scale war, Russia’s missiles and drones targeted some of the city’s most treasured cultural landmarks. The National Art Museum, the Chornobyl Museum, the National Philharmonic, the Ukrainian National Academy of Music, the Kyiv Opera Theater, the Yaroslav Mudryi National Library, the Ukrainian House, and a number of other cultural institutions all reported varying levels of damage after the May 24 assault. The Foreign Ministry building — a historic architectural landmark built in 1939 — also suffered minor but notable damage for the first time since World War II. “The Russian strikes targeted a historic area, the very center of the ancient (Kyivan) Rus...